


Vox Nihili

by AvatarMi_Chan



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Creepy, Dark, Horror, I don't know, M/M, Sad, So here we are, and setting, confusing?, it is mostly sad, just another exploration into tone, prose, unhealthy relationship, you will feel the feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 19:38:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7545415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvatarMi_Chan/pseuds/AvatarMi_Chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There once was a boy, who was afraid of the ocean,<br/>Until he found a light which illuminated the beauty he had been missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vox Nihili

What madness lurks so deep beneath the surface?

“Dipper?”

The encroaching darkness, a creeping sensation of something dark and unknown. It swirled around him in the vast void – nothing but warm depths and emptiness and a feeling of something coming.

Ever closer.

Ever nearer.

“Dipper?”

“Hmm?” He mumbled, glancing at his reflection in the screen. No, not reflection. His likeness, though even that word didn’t quite fit. She bore a rosier complexion than he, with fuller cheeks and a cluster of wild chestnut locks sloppily pinned to the top of her head with a wayward pen. He looked behind her at the familiar spray of posters, of knickknacks and pictures splayed across every open surface in a way that was less chaotic and more careful.

“You okay? It kind of seemed like you were zoning out there for a moment.” She responded with a small smile, reaching up in that delicate way she did to tuck a wayward strand of dark hair behind her ear. That small motion was as familiar to Dipper as any of his own, and even just the sight of it made him smile. He missed the familiarity of those small things, the easily forgettable motions that he himself had long ago forgotten how to do. His lips strained upward. They pushed and pulled and pressed into a smile which he knew she would believe even as the weight of it threatened to choke him.

“No, I’m fine.” And he was, because he was always fine around her. He used to say it was because of her magnetic personality – because she always knew what to do, what to say, to draw it out of him. His eyes lazily trailed over the mess behind her, finding their way to a framed photo, too far away to see clearly, but he already knew the image contained therein.

He wished he could be looking anywhere else. “But I should probably get back to work.”

“Oh, okay…” Mabel trailed, biting her lip. “Just… know we love you. And, we miss you.” Another soft movement, another flash of teeth as she anxiously bit down on pale flesh and worried.

He was always worrying her. No matter how much he smiled. The picture continued to watch him even as he met his sister’s gaze again. He could feel it, feel the strange tingling sensation of those smiling faces as they watched him pretend.

Watched him lie.

They could see right through him, even if his sister couldn’t.

“Miss you too.” He muttered, before turning off the screen and leaning back in his chair.

********************

The world is so infinitely vast. All of it, every ounce of sky and earth and water floating out amongst the infinite void. Yet, so few get to see the depth of it all, so few understand just how much there is.

Tap, tap, tap.

Dipper had only seen very little of the world. A mere glimpse, really. He felt like his view was blocked, as if his breath were fogging up the glass. Once, he’d tried to see outside. Once, he’d tried to wipe the mist away.

Tap, tap, tap.

The pen thrummed out an erythematic tune, a solo in the nearly overwhelming silence. Dipper hummed wistfully along to the motions of his fingertips, hazel gaze focused on the screen in front of him. Diagrams opened up before him in a series of wonton lines and letters like some sort of obscure painting. He traced each rise, each fall, mentally making a map of the information contained therein. Easy work. Simple work. Positive results, the diagrams said. The research is going well, his brain concluded. But none of that really mattered, did it?

Not to Dipper, anyway. It never had.

Tap, tap, tap, thud.

He lost his hold of his instrument, and the thin cylinder immediately went flying across his desk and hit the opposite wall – just below the light switch – before clattering uselessly to the ground.

“Damnit.” He sighed, collapsing against the surface of his desk.

Sleep.

How long had it been?

Twenty eight hours. He was fine. He should be fine at least. He’d been up for longer before. The work kept his mind busy, it kept him thinking about other things. He pretended it kept him busy.

He pretended to think about other things.

It was moments of distraction like this that he hated the most – those pauses between the diagrams and the analysis and the tests and the checkups.

He could already feel those unwanted thoughts buzzing at the corners of his consciousness, seeping into his mind like ink and dying everything in monochrome. His concentration was broken.

He couldn’t ignore them anymore.

“Pen, Dipper, just get the pen.” He muttered, before shoving to his feet and moving towards the door and retrieving the fallen item.

That’s when he heard it.

Tap, tap, tap.

Just like before, the unbroken beat resounded softly off the blank walls of the hall – barely louder than a whisper.

Tap, tap, tap.

Swallowing, Dipper closed his eyes and shook his head.

The sound stopped.

He went back to work.

***************************

One hundred.

Ninety-nine.

Ninety-eight.

He counted back in his mind, willing himself to get lost to their slow progression to zero.

Eighty.

Seventy-nine.

Seventy-eight.

Seventy-seven.

Everything ached for sleep. Every molecule of his being begged for release, yet his mind refused to cooperate. He thought of those things his mind tended to turn to in the dark. He thought of stolen kisses in the sunshine, and smiles that spread and spread until they wrapped around him and choked his breath away. He thought of warm skin pressed up against him and pressing down on him until he couldn’t see anything or feel anything else. He thought of burning touches and burning looks and burning and smothering and melting away into the sky.

He didn’t want to sleep.

He didn’t.

But he had too.

It was so hard, alone. Back home, his sister would sit at the edge of his bed and do the counting for him. The gentle, familiar feeling of her voice could easily change Dipper’s anxieties into silence within minutes – leaving him to his much needed rest.

It wasn’t the same down here.

Rolling over, Dipper pressed the pillow to the top of his head, trying to quiet the nagging doubts playing at the back of his mind.

Sixty-six,

Sixty-five,

Sixty-four…

“Can’t sleep?” A familiar voice called from the other side of the room.

Bill.

The relief he felt was instantaneous.

“No.” He responded, though his words came out as a muffled groan. The blonde snorted.

“How long has it been since you last fell asleep?” He asked. That voice was like a cool balm, like bitter lemon on Dipper’s lips. It filled him up, pouring in through his ears and forcing everything else out until only those resonating tones remained.

Dipper sighed, though whether it was from contentedness at the other man’s presence, or from his own lack of sleep he did not know. “Almost forty hours.”

Bill hummed, and Dipper could almost feel the warmth of the other man’s presence as he slowly made his way across the cabin towards him.

“I suppose you want me to stay here until you fall asleep.” He stated, and Dipper nodded, though he wasn’t quite sure if the blonde would be able to see with the pillow over his head.

Honestly, at this point, he was too tired to even bother removing it.

“I thought so. But, you know, I have an even better idea: stay awake with me.” It wasn’t a suggestion. He could hear the lilt on the blonde’s lips, could feel the smile closing around those words gnawing away at them with playful bites. He was testing Dipper, playing with him.

He always was.

“You know I can’t do that. My body needs sleep.” Dipper responded, pressing the pillow even closer to his skull. “I just can’t stop thinking. My head won’t let me.”

Bill sighed, and Dipper felt an odd sense of loss as the other man began to draw away.

“Always worrying. But have you ever considered that maybe those anxieties you feel are there for a reason?”

The room grew colder, emptier. He could feel the sudden chill like a cloud passing over head. Just like that, Dipper was alone again. Rolling over, he turned to his side and gazed at the picture of him and his family. Their seven smiling faces beamed back at him, almost mocking, until he finally drifted into the darkness.

*********************

“Dipper? Dipper?”

“Hmm?” He glanced up from his journal.

“You okay? You looked like you were thinking about something.” She said. She looked the same as always. Just like him, but different. Brighter. Happier.

He looked back down at his journal. Notes, scribbles really. His fingers traced over a few straight words, following the flitting movement of his gaze across the ink strewn page:

Bill.

Sleep.

Gone.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” He responded, lifting his lips in what he hoped appeared to be a small smile. It was getting harder and harder to pretend. They were still watching him, back there, all smiles and joy. They were still watching them, and they knew. He couldn’t pretend anymore. “But I should get back to work.”

“O, oh. Okay…” Mabel trailed, her voice strained despite the smile he knew was on her lips. She was always smiling. One of them had to be. “Just…be safe. And, we love you.” Dipper nodded.

“Yeah.” Then the screen went dark, with only his own reflection gazing back at him darkly.

**********************

The base was like a maze. Only one floor, but full of rooms and long narrow hallway twisting throughout the entirety of the thing in a large loop – like some sort deformed snake circling in on itself. He had been here nearly three months now, and he still didn’t quite know the way.

Mabel still called once a week.

Sometimes, though, he didn’t answer.

He didn’t know why, really. He still missed her – she was the star to his earth, the heliotropic center around which his whole galaxy orbited. She brought him light and warmth down here in the darkness and the cold.

Yet…

Dipper grit his teeth, pausing to lean against a wall in order to gather his bearings. He needed to stop thinking about it. He needed to stop worrying. In the grand scheme of things this was only a momentary phase, for him at least. He just felt that every time they talked, she always said the same things. She was worried. She missed him. She loved him.

Goodbye.

Dipper was tired of goodbyes.

No, Dipper wanted to be the one saying goodbye for once.

At the same time, there was so much that his twin left unsaid. That his uncles and his parents left unsaid. Unspoken words that hovered between them before settling upon his shoulders like heavy weights and echoing in his ears when he was alone at night and preventing him from sleeping.

Things like: he’s better off now.

Or: Is it wrong that I’m glad he’s gone?

Gone…glad he was gone…

Bringing his hand up, Dipper slowly ran his fingers through his hair, breathing in and out slowly.

He was worrying too much again.

He was just anxious. Anxious over nothing.

…but what if those anxieties he felt were there for a reason?

Suddenly, Dipper caught something moving out of the corner of his eye – slowly, like someone walking at an unusual pace. Teetering – a flash of darkness that seemed to fall forward with each motion before straightening and repeating the process again. But the moment he turned his head, there was nothing there.

“Bill?” He called, but there was no response. Pushing away from the wall, Dipper slowly walked towards the hallway in question, glancing his head down the way he’d thought he’d seen the figure move.

There was nothing there.

******************

Beautiful.

Dipper Pines loved the ocean. He loved way the light would catch on the surface – making the whole expanse look like a field of jewels rolling and receding before him upon the frothy waves. He loved the bite of the breeze – harsh and bitter with brine and cool from the water’s surface. He loved the feeling of it as it washed over his skin – icy cold, but with a certain gentleness to it.

When he gazed up at the poster taped over his desk in the office, he could almost imagine he was back there, back home with everyone he cared about.

But he wasn’t.

He was far from home, and deep beneath the ocean.

It was not beautiful or gentle now.

‘Don’t go’, his sister had begged, holding his hand tightly and gazing at him through tear stained eyes.

‘Don’t go’, his uncles had said, their faces filled with worry, and care, and something else that was cold and glaring like metal or polished stone.

But he had to. He’d had to go. Something drew him out there, drew him away from the surface that he loved and the people that made it worth loving. There was something down here, something far away from any of that.

“Nice expression there, Pine tree.”

Closing his eyes, Dipper released a long sigh.

“What do you want Bill?” He asked.

“To see your pretty face. You know you look the most beautiful like this.” There was the soft pad of footsteps, and Dipper could almost feel the press of the man’s face just inches from his own.

“Like what?” He imagined Bill’s lips opening to a line of pale, bone-white teeth, imagined the gleam in his eye as he spoke his next words.

“Crying.”

**********************

There was a feeling inside him, a nagging suspicion at the base of his stomach rabidly clawing through soft flesh like desperate fingers. It slowly tore through him, ripping away any shred of comfort he had.

He stared at the screens sitting before him, at the empty expanse of their blank faces as they gazed back.

At his own reflection, as if he were reflected in ink.

Something was different.

He could feel it. He could feel it in every sense of his being – a rising paranoia that threatened to overwhelm him.

Tap

– a fear, perhaps.

– a discovery.

Tap

A profound sense of knowing, as if he were only beginning to see the world for what it really was. And that very same knowledge was drawing closer, slowly closer, ever nearer.

– something moving just out of sight.

Tap

He could see it now, a figure in the black slowly stepping behind him. Warped, distorted, as if he were gazing through bubbled glass. As if it were flickering before him – a flame sputtering.

A flame fading.

A fire withering away into dark.

– down here, far below the surface,

Tap

A body. A face. Two eyes, milky in hue.

Two eyes staring directly into Dipper’s own.

– they were not alone.

**********

He gazed at his reflection in the darkened glass.

Paler. Thinner. His hair was a wild mess of dirty curls – the oily strands sticking up every which way like a mad cacophony of springs curling out from his skull. His eyes - dark brown in hue - gazed out from within the pits surrounding his sockets, twin dark circles colored red ‘round the water line.

Not enough sleep.

Too much worrying.

But he had so much to worry about.

He was convinced he and Bill weren’t the only ones in the station.

…he could hear it sometimes. Whatever it was.

He could hear it in the halls at night. It would scudder. It would thump. It would pull itself across the floor just beyond his door. Step by step. Slowly. Slowly. Agonizingly so. He’d lie there awake and listen to its movements, counting back from a hundred a hundred times only to start over again and again, and again.

Forty-three

Forty-two

Forty-one

Bill said he heard it too, but not as often as Dipper. He’d taken to sleeping in the brunette’s quarters – Dipper felt calmer with the other man around. Bill would talk and talk and talk, distracting Dipper from whatever sounds he heard outside.

“I won’t let anything hurt you.” He would say from his bunk across the room. “I love you.” He would whisper beside Dipper’s ear as the brunette began to drift to sleep.

“Goodb…” And Dipper would fall asleep.

They also found that he saw the creature less often when he was with Bill. The blonde had become his shield, his safety net. Dipper clung to him desperately, grateful for his sole source of comfort in the dark. His roaring light, is blazing beacon.

Dipper’d stopped taking calls from the surface. They wouldn’t believe him, they never did.

“They won’t believe you.” The words resonated through Dipper, their truth surmount. “We’re all alone down here. All we have right now is each other.” Bill stated, his golden gaze meeting Dipper’s in the mirror. The brunette nodded, reaching his hand out to touch Bill’s form beside his reflection in the glass.

All they had was each other.

*******************

Once there was a boy.

A boy who was afraid of the ocean.

He was afraid of the deep.

He was afraid of the dark.

He was afraid of the unknown.

Until one day, that boy met a light to show him what he was missing.

Suddenly the world was new.

Suddenly the world was auric and the everything seemed to stretch eternally into blue and brine and brilliance.

He saw the ocean.

He fell in love with the light.

But like anything wild, fire is dangerous.

Eventually, the boy was bound to get burned.

He could smell it in the air around him. A haze, a heavy blanket that hit his nose like a waft of smoke and filled his lungs with its pungent, acrid scent.

Bill had been out drinking again.

Two years.

‘Two years’ Dipper had thought as he sat before the empty table with its empty chair and its empty plates and the vase brimming with red roses and their empty meaning.

‘Two Years’ he whispered to the quiet just after midnight, swallowing the sobs that wracked his chest and made his lips taste like salt water.

‘Two years’ murmured the ring against his finger.

‘Two years’ he shouted at the flustered blonde, with his easy smile and his easy words and his easy way of breaking the other man in two.

No more chances.

He almost didn’t realize what had happened. It was if his entire body had suddenly been submerged in ice water – his skin a tingling numbness as he raised his fingers to his cheek. Turning, he looked to the mirror, at the image of himself cast there, only different. There, just below his left eye, a fiery wound bled out across his skin like water color to flesh toned canvas.

It ached. It seared and smoldered and for a moment Dipper couldn’t breathe.

For a moment he couldn’t do anything but watch the image that looked like him, but was not him, as it watched him back.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I didn’t mean it.’

‘I love you.’

Dipper cast his light into the darkness, turning his gaze from the sputtering embers as he watched all the beauty in the world fade into monochrome.

*********************

How deep.

Twenty-one

Twenty

Nineteen

Deep like the ocean. Like the rippling surface, with its mirrored face reflecting back up the blue of the sky. Like masks and darkness deep below going down, down, down.

Sinking. Sinking into the blue-black waters. Sinking down to the maw of the abyss, opening wide before you and swallowing you up until there is nothing but quiet and sleep and the distant buzzing of the mind as it fades away into the nothingness.

He thought this as he stared at the poster hanging above his desk in his office. He thought of this, and he thought about all the lies. The image of the ocean spread out across cheap laminated paper and hastily taped up above him with heart spotted duct tape was a lie.

His reason for being in this underwater laboratory was also a lie. A fabrication created by his family to get him away.

Because they didn’t want him anymore.

He only had Bill to trust.

They only had each other.

“Bill.” Dipper murmured.

Fifteen

Fourteen

Thirteen

“What is it, Pine tree?” the blonde responded almost immediately – his voice no louder than a whisper. Dipper tilted his head backward, leaning back in the seat until he could see behind him.

The room was empty.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?” Bill’s voice came from just beside Dipper, but also nowhere at all.

“Hiding. Hiding from me.”

“Oh, Pine tree.” Bill hummed, “how could I possibly be hiding when I’m not even here?”

Dipper’s seat wobbled and fell forward, letting out a resounding thud in the quiet.

“Not…here.”

“Of course. I’ve never been. And it’s all your fault.” Bill continued softly, as if he were explaining something to a small child.

“All my fault.” Dipper echoed, and the words settled within him, clicking right into place like they had always belonged there.

All his fault. He’d known it all along really. They told him it wasn’t.

‘Dipper, you can’t blame yourself for this.’

‘Dipper, there was nothing you could have done.’

More lies. More fabrications.

But oh, how he’d wanted to believe them.

An accident, they had called it.

‘A terrible tragedy’ the newsman had mourned as a picture of the river running through downtown alongside a photo of a smiling couple – one blonde, one brunette. Behind them, the crowed of family had been blurred out, creating an almost ethereal look to the image – as if it weren’t even real.

As if that couple were the only real things in all the world.

They had taken that photo during their first anniversary.

“I should have stopped you. I should have done something.” The words bubbled up in his throat, clogging his chest and filling his brain with fog.

He wished he could say they were happy in the way that existed in stories.

He wished he could say he was happy in the way that didn’t.

He wished he could say he didn’t tell himself he was.

But he wasn’t.

And just two years after they promised to love each other forever, Dipper couldn’t take it anymore.

That was the last time he would see Bill’s face again.

Three days without a word from him.

On the fourth Dipper sent him a message.

On the fifth he called.

It wasn’t until he started getting in contact with Bill’s friends that he decided to go to the police.

It took them only a week after that to find his body. It washed up on the shore a couple miles down from their street. After the dental scans were confirmed they called in his next of kin to identify the body.

His spouse, Dipper Pines.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Dipper cried, folding in on himself.

‘Dipper, don’t blame yourself.’

He could still see the body. Still see the ashen skin, colored blue-green round the lips and pale pink round the eyes.

And his eyes, his beautiful eyes. His bright, enigmatic eyes like aquamarine and the sky at the crest of noon and like the way Dipper imagined the ocean to be even as he was faced with the gritty and murky green of the frothing waves.

His eyes had gone white.

‘Dipper, it’s not your fault.’

But it was. He wanted Bill back. He wanted him alive and happy and warm, and in his arms.

Five

Four

He wanted to hug him, to kiss him, to laugh at him, to fight with him.

Three

Two

To forgive him.

One

He wanted to say goodbye.

One-hundred

But he would never get the chance to do that.

It didn’t help that his family thought he was better off. They didn’t say so, but he could see it in their eyes, feel it even as they attempted to console him.

They thought Dipper would be happier, now that Bill was gone.

But he wasn’t.

Bill Cipher was Dipper’s other half, and without him Dipper was left empty.

Without the other man, Dipper was broken.

Without his light, he could no longer see the beauty of the ocean.

Dipper opened his eyes to the things he had been trying to forget. The monster that hovered at the back of his mind – the nightmare he had created for himself.

…All they had was each other.

“Pine tree…” Bill called softly, his voice washing over Dipper and washing away the terror welling in his chest.

“Pine tree…” He murmured, his pale lips opening and closing around the rotting brown water pouring down his chin and pooling on the floor beneath him.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Dipper repeated like a mantra, like a prayer sent up to the surface. He hoped it reached his great uncles, who only wanted the best for him. He hoped it reached his sister, who wanted to protect him from the things he hadn’t wanted protecting from. “I’m sorry.” He said to the figure standing before him, with its bloated body and decaying skin.

“No, Pine tree. That’s not right. That’s not what you’re supposed to say.” The figure drew closer, no longer bright. No longer luminescent. Instead it gazed at him and bubbled and swayed. Instead it looked at him, and it was as if Dipper were gazing through contorted glass. It teetered and rippled and reached towards him, fingers resting gently against his left cheek.

Dipper’s lips opened even as his eyelids fell shut, the unspoken words that had been filling him spilling out into the air and expanding between them until everything was made iridescent.

“Goodbye.”

***************

Beep….

The first time they met, his sister had dragged him to the docks for a carnival. All along the shore large rides stood outlined against the cotton-candy sunset, solid fixtures against the wind blown sand and shadowed horizon.

Dipper didn’t like the ocean.

But there was no way he could say no to Mabel.

So he went on the rides and he pretended he wasn’t afraid. He wore a grin exactly like his twin’s, and after a while the rainbow hued lights and the endless sugar and breathless shouts into the starry void left him forgetting the terror which blossomed within him whenever he turned his gaze upon the water.

“Just wait here, I’ll be right back.” She’d said, leaving him with only the rickety wooden planks of the boardwalk to protect him from the thunderous crash of the waves against the shore. He studied each line, each knot and flaw. Anything to distract him from the darkness.

Anything to distract him from the deep.

Yet, like a siren’s call drawing unsuspecting sailors to their doom, so too did the ocean call to him. He found his gaze turning upward in spite of himself – up to the star spotted surface of the water as it bled into the sky.

And there - standing at the edge of the dock with his toes dangling just over the edge and his head turned up to the waning moon which seemed to turn its light from the earth out of sheer wonton bashfulness – was a man.

He couldn’t remember what it was that drew the stranger’s attention. Perhaps it was the distant call of his sister. Perhaps it was the creak of the boards beneath Dipper’s feet as he took a startled step back. Perhaps it was the salty air, or the roar of the waves.

None of that mattered, really. Because, in the end, the man still turned his bright gaze to Dipper - eyes flashing despite the modest light – and grinned.

Beep.

Dipper took a step forward.

Then another, and another.

His heart pounded in his ears, all the world opening up before him in the form of black canvas speckled with shimmering paint. There was nothing, nothing but the still water below and the vast sky above and the smiling form before him as Bill opened his arms and took Dipper in a warm embrace.

‘Goodbye’ He whispered.

‘Goodbye’

Beep.

Beep.

“He’s waking up!” A familiar voice called. Everything was brilliant, his eyelids slowly parting to reveal nothing but white, white, white.

And then there was a face, blurry and distorted.

He blinked, and suddenly it was as if he were gazing into his own reflection.

Only this version of himself was smiling.

He felt his heart lighten at the sight.

“He’s alright!” She cried, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him into a hug that felt as familiar to him as his own skin. Lifting his arms, he carefully embraced her back.

He wasn’t alright. He knew that much. He could still feel the hum of voices just on the edges of his mind, waiting to overtake him.

But now he knew. Now he was ready to get better.

Now he was prepared to say goodbye.

**Author's Note:**

> Song for this fic is River by Bishop Briggs.  
> So, h tags sure look inviting, don't they? Aahahaha....  
> This whole story started with me wanting t write Dipper talking to someone who wasn't actually there without letting the reader know.  
> And then, well, it all went downhill from there XD.  
> I hope you guy liked this story, and thanks for reading!


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